Egypt unveils first ancient royal tomb found since Tutankhamun

Egypt’s antiquities authority says it has found the ancient tomb of King Thutmose II, the first royal burial to be found since the famed discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922.

The tomb, discovered near the Valley of the Kings in Luxor in southern Egypt, belonged to King Thutmose II of the 18th dynasty, who lived nearly 3,500 years ago. Thutmose II was an ancestor to Tutankhamun himself, and his half-sister and queen consort was Pharaoh Hatshepsut.

Her giant mortuary temple stands on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor a few kilometers from where the tomb of Thutmose II was found.

Although preliminary studies suggest its contents were moved in ancient times — leaving the tomb without the iconic mummy or gilded splendor of the Tutankhamun find — the antiquities ministry calls the discovery “one of the most significant archaeological breakthroughs in recent years.”